you forgot WaterSense
:)

http://www.epa.gov/watersense/

Yes, things can be a bit confusing but doing something is better than doing nothing. I think everyone should just keep their eye on the prize and that should suffice until everything is either energy star of FSC or SFI Or LEED.

Every freaking time there is a movement, it becomes so overly commercialized into nothingness. We can't let that happen.

Yes, things can be a bit confusing but doing something is better than doing nothing. I think everyone should just keep their eye on the prize and that should suffice until everything is either energy star of FSC or SFI Or LEED.

Every freaking time there is a movement, it becomes so overly commercialized into nothingness. We can't let that happen.

Yes, things can be a bit confusing but doing something is better than doing nothing. I think everyone should just keep their eye on the prize and that should suffice until everything is either energy star of FSC or SFI Or LEED.

Every freaking time there is a movement, it becomes so overly commercialized into nothingness. We can't let that happen.

Thanks for sharing this. It does seem to be a bit noisy in the world of "eco-labeling."

So here is a modest proposal.

(By modest, I most likely mean naive, but bear with me).

Product quality labeling is an artifact of the printing press. It comes for the need to advertise, at point of purchase, that a product has particular attributes or passes a certain standard. The most convenient way to do this was to physically print a label and attach is to the product (or the product's packaging.)

The information behind the label is hidden. There is not enough space to print the complete back story, especially since it could take a lot of space to translate the engineering and safety science behind, say the Underwriters' Laboratory tests, into apprehendable language.

So a simple "badge" became the lingua franca of product quality.

It's that simplicity that allows many new labels (backstory-free labels at that) to clutter the eco-labeling space.

So, to my proposal:

Make the "backstory" of every label available to mobile phones at the point of purchase. Allow the consumer to see exactly what is being labeled (FSC labels products, SFI labels companies' commitment to principals), to what standard, with what ecological impact, and how "old" the certification is. Clearly, this will not be used by many point-of-purchase customers, but this level of transparency will have a dramatic effect of the eco-labeling "field."

The technology exists to do this now. Any takers?

There should be only two.
One that measures the energy usage of a finished product relative to other finished products in it's category, ie Energy Star.
And another one that takes the entire environmental impact from manufacturing to disposal into account in four separate categories:

1.Energy Consumption used in the manufacturing process including transportation, harvesting, etc.

2.Environmental Harm caused in the manufacturing process in terms of emissions (Co2 emissions, chemical waste, etc.)

3. Harm to the Consumer (off-gassing, etc)

4. Use of Renewable and Non-Endangered Species/Materials

I nominate Energy Star and Cradle 2 Cradle just because I've heard of them and the branding is tight, (relatively) widely used, and to the point.
Energy Star is there already. It's just a matter of tightening the standard so that it means something.

C2C might have to revamp it's criteria and devise some sort of simple signifier for each of the categories, but the door is wide open if they want to walk through it. After that I'd say Green Standard and after that, it's anybody's guess.

Not to simplify the complexity of devising & qualifying standards but I think the problem right now is primarily Branding.
The first company that can devise a system to illustrate the above in a way that's easy to digest and understand by consumers is going to win out in the long run.

i understand what jdavid is saying but the problem comes in as to who gets to write the "backstory" as you put it, the organization/standard/company? that likely wont clear anything up, since it'll be a comercial and we've all see commercials that leave out important facts or try to make "bad" things look "good"

This posting is actually quite timely as I'm in the process of going into business with my father building custom homes with a focus on sustainability. It's been a struggle balancing the costs and benefits of the multitude of materials, technologies, and standards. It's important to offer a real benefit not only to the businesses who's livelyhoods will depend on this emerging sector but also for the consumers who will ultimately spend their hard earned dollars on the goods are services that emerge from the green economy. There are so many dilemas it boggles the mind. Take for example, durability vs sustainability. A home made from the least sustainable materials that will last a millenia or more is arguably a more efficient and sustainable use of materials than a wholly sustainable cabin which will have to be remodeled in 10 years. Any thoughts?

Confused? So were we. That's why we started ecolabelling.org. It's early days, but there's more to come (not least a lot more labels) - they pop up like mushrooms!

There's a lot of work to be done to separate the green from the greenwash.

The backstories are the standards themselves, sometimes hundreds of pages long. Certainly not what I want to read on my mobile, and as for only having 2 labels...well Daniel's suggestion just isn't realistic. the point of these labels are to compare apples to apples. the impacts of the "manufacturing process" for a fishery is going to be really different than a car, and how would we go about saying how what's acceptable for the manufacturing process for the car is equivalent to a certain amount of bycatch of a certain species in the fishery.